Comments for What Are You Reading: August 22, 2011

What Are You Reading: August 22, 2011: 08/22/11

School starts this week for all of us. While on our road trip, the kids and I got back in the habit of reading bedtime stories together. Those bedtime stories are inflating my numbers in the Finished List.

I finished two review books: Clementine and the Family Meeting by Sara Pennypacker and Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes by Jonathan Auxier. I finished one novel: Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder, and one non-fiction: The Wrong House by Stephen Jacobs.

We are still listening to Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale in the car. It was our audio book for the return journey but it ran longer than the drive. We have one and a half discs left, or roughly an hour and a half. I am enjoying the story but the narrator (Dashti) is seriously getting on my nerves. She's so earnest about everything (Ancestors forgive me!).

The weirdest and most memorable book I read last week was Monkey Food. I'm a little younger than the author but I do still remember the 1970s. My daughter, though, is turning out to be precocious in her reading. I caught her reading over my shoulder. Although it's a memoir of childhood, there's pot smoking, frank talk of sex, nudity and so forth. I told her to wait until she's a teenager. She was disappointed but agreed to wait.

My upcoming reads will be text books. I also want to finish Fullmetal Alchemist volume 24, The Ghost and the Goth and get started on Dreaming in Hindi. There will also be lots and lots of bedtime stories.

I just put Book of a Thousand Days higher on my reading stack. I've been thinking a lot about earnestness in relation to reading Watching the English by Kate Fox. She considers anti-earnestness to be an English characteristic. I'm so steeped in Midwestern earnestness that I don't think I even recognize it! It will be fun to see if I can spot it in Hale's book.

Comment #6: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 11:41:33

Pussreboots

My comment about the earnestness of Dashti's narration is about how her part is performed in the audio book. Hale's writing throughout is flowery in an attempt to give Dashti a rural voice but the excess of emotion when perhaps it's not there in the text is a problem with the audio book, not with Hale's writing.

I loved Book of a Thousand Days. Maybe it's just the audio? I really need to read A Princess of Landover. I loved the first books in this series but I haven't gotten to that one yet. Enjoy your week!

Comment #14: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 14:16:18

Pussreboots

I think it's just the audio. The words themselves don't seem to have the same urgency that the actress sometimes puts into them. A Princess of Landover is fun. It reminds me of the earliest books in the series.

Great Monday!
I really want to read Inside Out, it looks great, and I love Maria V. Snyder.
And that story about your daughter reading over your shoulder was hilarious. It's sweet knowing that she'll want to read anything that she comes in contact with. :)
Happy reading this week! :)

Comment #24: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 14:35:25

Pussreboots

I will learn (eventually) to keep an eye out for her when I'm reading. She has a knack for showing up right when I'm getting to a juicy part.